To hate being a cleaner. How can I quit?

[givemehopepls]

I've been cleaning for a year now. I hate it. Money is bad, customers are terrible and the actual work is draining.

I've been a sahm for 4 years and my highest qualification is 1 year at university. My partner is moving up in his career despite having no formal qualifications. I'm resentful and feel I should be happy for him.

I've been looking at apprenticeships but I feel I'm too old (27) without relevant experience to apply.

I don't know where to go from here. I don't want to clean until my last days.

I did an apprenticeship at 36. Go for it!

Would you consider being a temp? I did it for 5 years. Discovered what I did and didn't like and was offered permanent work by a good few of them. I was lucky that I never had a gap between contracts but I took anything going to be honest.

TheNoiseHurts

I wouldn't consider a job like that. My friend worked in similar role and was assaulted many times. She's recently left that kind of work now for the office.

I've looked at temping, mainly admin roles but they require experienced professionals not junior/entry level.

Loads of interesting jobs in policing, if not as an officer. Have a look at your local force.

Look on Future Learn, run by the Open University. They have lots of free courses which would give you something to put on CV, though you do need to pay if you want to do the assessment and certificate. Think it's usually around £60 for a course/certificate, but even putting the course on your CV, assuming you've done it and can talk about it, might help with switching direction. Most courses last 4-12 weeks, all on-line, generally very interesting, usually 2-4 hours per week, in your own time.

If you are interested in social research, lots of the big companies (Ipsos Mori, Kantar Public, IFF, Nat Cen) often recruit for interviewers/ field workers. Have a look at their websites. It might be a good place to start, especially if you like working with people.

This link is for telephone interviewing, but they often want people to work face-to-face.

www.iffresearch.com/join-our-interviewer-team/

I wouldn't consider a job like that. My friend worked in similar role and was assaulted many times.

I think your friend must have worked with able bodied autistic children perhaps?

I was thinking more PMLD. The children I worked with were wheelchair bound, severe cerebral palsy, that type of thing.
They can't hurt you in any way shape or form (unless learning to drive there new electric wheel chair and accidentally go over your toe 😁😁😁).

But it definitely takes a type or person to do that kind of job, it's not for everyone.

Try looking into whether there's a recruitment day in your area. This seems to be the time of year of recruitment days.

Coding?

You're still really young, don't worry you'll have many opportunities ahead.
Lots of people do cleaning now, no one worth their salt should judge you on that

Lots of admin jobs in the nhs. Look at band 2 level. Most are looking for basic computer skills, customer service experience, to be hard working and conscious

Maybe try and get yourself a cleaning job in a hotel or similar? Make it clear you want reception training if and when available and be as bright and friendly as possible. Once you’ve trained on reception and gained some experience you’ll be able to put reception (and probably some admin) on your cv and you can move elsewhere if you then want.

There's an ad on civil service jobs at the moment for Government economist apprenticeships that might work with some of what you say you enjoy. Pays not too bad for an apprenticeship.

Where roughly do you live?

You have almost another 40 years before you reach pension age. Plenty of time to find the right career.

I think your voting system is meaningless btw. I said yabu for thinking you’re too old for apprenticeships. Equally I imagine others have said YANBU to want to stop cleaning.

TheNoise

Yes, she was working with children with autism.

May work for NHS. Are the prospects looking good with Brexit and all?

I can do a bit of coding. I've used R and python before. But my knowledge is very basic.

I've worked in a hotel before. NEVER again. I had to clean 16+ rooms and couldn't go home until the supervisor had inspected them. Miss something and you have to go back and do it again. They wouldn't have let me progress, they were always short staffed. It was horrible.

May check the Economist Apprenticeship, sounds right up my alley.

I'm based in London.

Yeah, probably should have turned voting off. Didn't mean to leave the poll on

Agree with the NHS suggestions. Lots of band 2 healthcare assistant jobs going that can lead to things like nursing associate or assistant practitioner and qualifications funded by the NHS? My friend started as a radiography HCA band 2, then moved into a band 3 occupational therapy assistant role and is now a band 4 assistant practitioner thinking about doing an OT degree.

There are jobs as band 2 ward clerks/receptionists to get your foot in the door.

Civil service admin roles? Quite a few apprenticeships around in the CS.

www.vision2learn.net/courses are all NVQ Level 2 courses - free as they are funded by the government. The business admin course might be good for you? Something to put on your CV!

Schools are always looking for volunteers and after volunteering for a while you can ask the headteacher to be a referee.

SO many tech/finance firms now doing technology apprenticeships for people with no current qualifications who will gain a degree on the course.

Look at the recruitment websites for some of the global investment banks/finance firms. Most have a regional outpost for Tech as well as a London office.

My best friend sounds similar but didn't go to uni. She's 36 and just landed a job as an apprentice HR in a logistics company. She says the wage is crap but the qualifications she's gaining and there is a guaranteed proper job at the end so she's sticking with it.

I’m not sure OP, being a cleaner is my dream job so I’m probably no help at all!

Cannot wait till dc are older and I can start earning and cleaning is the best thing I can think of, a nice solitary job !

What about a receptionist? I did it out of uni because I had no idea what I wanted to do, a degree absolutely isn’t necessary though- you just need to be presentable, friendly and decent with a computer. London roles for big companies can pay up to £30k. Then I and a lot of my former colleagues made the jump to city PAs. I’m a project manager now.

I got a civil service apprenticeship in HMRC at the age of 42 a couple of years ago so you're definitely not too old! The job really wasn't for me, but I'd left a job in finance and decided to go back to my old career. If you wanted to start a different career though it might work for you?

Surely if you got a student loan to do a university course you would not have to repay until you earned over the £25000 ish threshold?

Have you heard of aat - accounting technicians qual - it's a great entry level course to start some basic book keeping. With some foundation skills you can then move on or could be something you do part time

NHS is good. Also GP practices - it's not just about being a receptionist and a receiptionist at a GP surgery covers whole lot more than checking patients in. A large number of admin roles in many practices. You can opt into the NHS pension scheme and all NHS benefits. MAny practices look for previous experience so you MAY be able to see if a practice is willing to take you on for a specific role - backscanning for example. Write to the practice manager.